Last week I attended General Assembly's "Building Brands People Love: Made in DC" with female leaders from Sweetgreen, Framebridge, and Chaia Tacos. They gave great advice on building a brand, pitching it to investors, marketing it to the public, and innovating it. Here were the key take-ways from the event:

🔑 Always sell the dream.

🔑 Even if there's information about your space you need to be able to speak about it.

🔑 Use friends and family during the beta period for your e-commerce business.

🔑 Advertise on podcasts.

🔑 Reach out to people and send samples out to anyone you can, like magazines, publishers, and brands.

🔑 Talk to the community, spread your story. Combine in-person experiences with data.

🔑 If you work super hard with the people you're with now, you'll always have a great opportunity for you in the future.

🔑 Practice what you preach.

🔑 Make sure you're disrupting a market and actually solving a problem.

🔑 Be someone who takes something that doesn't scale and figures out how to scale it.

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